THE MASTERPIECES OF
GEORGE SAND
AMANDINE LUCILLE AURORE DUPIN,
BARONESS DUDEVANT
VOLUME VII
THE PICCININO
THE LAST OF THE ALDINIS
The Masterpieces of George Sand
Amandine Lucille Aurore Dupin, Baroness
Dudevant, _NOW FOR THE FIRST
TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED
INTO ENGLISH THE PICCININO, AND THE LAST OF THE
ALDINIS BY G. BURNHAM IVES_
_WITH SIX PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS BY
ORESTE CORTAZZO._
_VOLUME I_
_PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY
GEORGE BARRIE & SON
PHILADELPHIA_
[Illustration: _EXAMINING THE ABBÉ'S PAPERS._
_He opened and ran through several other papers
which mentioned none but unknown names, and
which Mila burned without looking at them._]
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER
I. THE TRAVELLER
II. THE TRAVELLER'S STORY
III. MONSIGNORE
IV. MYSTERIES
V. THE CASINO
VI. THE STAIRCASE
VII. A GLANCE
VIII. THE INTRUDER
IX. MILA
X. PROBLEM
XI. THE GROTTO OF THE NAIAD
XII. MAGNANI
XIII. AGATHA
XIV. BARBAGALLO
XV. ROMANTIC LOVE
XVI. CONCLUSION OF MAGNANI'S STORY
XVII. THE CYCLAMEN
XVIII. THE MONKS
XIX. YOUTHFUL LOVES
XX. BEL PASSO AND MAL PASSO
XXI. FRA ANGELO
XXII. THE FIRST STEP ON THE MOUNTAIN
XXIII. THE DESTATORE
XXIV. IL PICCININO
XXV. THE DESTATORE'S CROSS
XXVI. AGATHA
XXVII. DIPLOMACY
XXVIII. JEALOUSY
XXIX. APPARITIONS
XXX. THE FALSE MONK
XXXI. WITCHCRAFT
XXXII. THE ESCALADE
XXXIII. THE RING
XXXIV. AT THE FOUNTAIN
XXXV. THE COAT OF ARMS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE PICCININO
VOLUME I
EXAMINING THE ABBÉ'S PAPERS
THE CARDINAL'S ESCORT
THE BALL AT THE PALMAROSA PALACE
AFTER THE FÊTE
THE CONFERENCE WITH THE PICCININO
MILA SURPRISED AT THE FOUNTAIN
INTRODUCTION
_The Piccinino_ is an imaginary tale, which does not attempt either to
depict any precise period of history or to describe accurately any
country. It is a study in color, dreamed rather than felt, wherein
correct strokes are few and, as it were, accidental. The scene of this
romance might have been placed anywhere else under the skies of Southern
Europe, and my sole reason for selecting Sicily was that I happened to
have a collection of fine engravings before my eyes at that moment.
I had always been conscious of a longing to draw my little brigand
chief, as others have done. The brigand chief who formed the principal
motive of so many novels and melodramas under the Empire, under the
Restoration, and even in romantic literature, always proved generally
entertaining, and the principal interest always attached to that
awe-inspiring and mysterious personage. It was most ingenuous on the
part of the public, but so it was. Whether the type was
terror-inspiring, as in the case of Byron's brigands, or, like those of
Cooper, deserving of the Monthyon prize for virtue, it was enough that
those heroes of despair should have legitimately earned the halter or
the galleys, for every tender-hearted and virtuous reader to love them
devotedly from the first page, and to offer up prayers for the success
of their undertakings. Why, then, should I, on the pretext of being a
reasonable person, have deprived myself of the pleasure of creating one
of them according to my fancy?
Being fully persuaded that the brigand chief had become a part of the
public domain, and belonged to every novelist, as do all other classical
types, I determined to try at least to make that personage, occupying as
he does so abnormal a position, possible and true to life in his
character. Such a mystery envelops Byron's pirates that one would not
dare to question them, and that one fears or pities them without knowing
them. Indeed we may as well say at once that it is by virtue of that
unexplained mystery that they appeal to us; but I am not Byron, and my
novels are not poems. I desired, for my own part, to draw a perfectly
intelligible character, encompassed by romantic circumstances, who is
somewhat exceptional in himself, but with whom my indulgent reader can
become acquainted, little by little, as with any ordinary mortal.
GEORGE SAND
Nohant, April 22, 1853.
THE PICCININO
TO MY FRIEND
_EMMANUEL ARAGO_
IN MEMORY OF A PLEASANT EVENING
I
THE TRAVELLER
The region called _piedimonta_, which surrounds the base of Ætna, and
of which Catania forms the portion nearest the level of the sea, is,
according to the declared opinions of all travellers, the loveliest
country in the whole world. It is that fact which impels me to place
there the scene of a story which was recently told me, but of which I
was forbidden to reveal the real _locus_ or the real characters.
Therefore, dear reader, pray take the trouble to transport yourself in
imagination to the district called Valdemona, or _Valley of the Demons_.
It is a beautiful spot, which, however, I do not propose to describe in
great detail, for a sufficiently good reason: namely, that I am not
familiar with it, and one cannot depict very faithfully what one knows
only by hearsay. But there are so many excellent books of travel that
you can consult! unless, indeed, you prefer to go thither in person,
which I would that I, too, might do, to-morrow, provided that it was not
with you, reader; for, in presence of the marvellous beauties of that
spot, you would rebuke me for having described it so ill, and there is
nothing more disagreeable than a travelling companion who is constantly
preaching at you.
In default of something better, my fancy is impelled to lead you rather
far away, beyond the mountains, and to leave in peace for a time the
quiet country districts wherein I usually like to frame my tales. The
moving cause of this fancy is exceedingly puerile, but I propose to tell
it to you.
I do not know whether you remember, assuming that you do me the honor to
read me, that I placed before you last year a novel entitled _The Sin of
Monsieur Antoine_, the scene of which was laid on the banks of the
Creuse, and especially among the ruins of the ancient château of
Châteaubrun. Now that château exists, and I drive thither at least
once in every year, although it is about ten leagues from my own home.
This year I was very coldly received by the old peasant woman who has
charge of the ruins.
"Look you!" she cried, in her half-Berrichon, half-Marchois patois, "I
don't think much of you; my name is not _Janille_, but _Jennie_. I
haven't got any daughter, and I don't lead my master round by the nose.
My master don't wear a blouse; you lied about him. I never saw him in a
blouse, etc., etc. I don't know how to read, but I do know that you've
been writing lies about my master and me. I have no liking for you now."
This harangue apprized me that there still lives, not far from the ruins
of Châteaubrun, an old man named Châteaubrun, who never wears a
blouse. That is all that I know about him.
But it proved to me that I must needs be most circumspect when writing
of La Marche and Berry. That was at least the tenth time that something
of that sort had happened to me, and every time persons bearing the name
of some of my characters, or living in the localities I have described,
have flown into a passion with me and accused me of slandering them, not
deigning to believe that I took their names by chance, and that I did
not know of their existence.
To give them time to become calm again, before I return to that region,
I propose to make an excursion to Sicily. But how shall I avoid making
use of a name that belongs to some inhabitant or some portion of that
celebrated island? A Sicilian hero cannot be called Durand or Wolf, nor
do I find on the map of the country any name which rhymes with Pontoise
or Baden-Baden. I really must baptize my actors and my stage with names
that have some rhyme in _a_, _o_ or _i_. I will take those which are
easiest to pronounce, so far as is possible, without much heed to
geographical accuracy, declaring beforehand that I do not know a cat in
Sicily, even by reputation; so that I cannot possibly intend to point at
any particular person.
Having made this statement, I am free to choose, and the choice of names
is the most embarrassing question that confronts a novelist who wishes
to become sincerely attached to the characters he creates. In the first
place, I need a princess who has a resounding name, one of those which
give you an exalted idea of the person who bears it; and there are such
lovely names in that country! Acalia, Madonia, Valcorrente, Valverde,
Primosole, Tremisteri, etc.--they all ring true on the ear, like perfect
chords. But if perchance there has ever happened in any of the patrician
families which bear the names of those seignorial localities, an
adventure like that which I am about to describe--a delicate adventure,
I confess--why, I am sure to be accused once more of evil-speaking or
calumny. Luckily, Catania is very far away; my novels do not, in all
probability, pass the lighthouse of Messina, and I trust that the new
pope will do in charity what his predecessor did without knowing why:
that is to say, keep me in the Index; then I shall be entirely at
liberty to speak of Italy, certain that Italy, and with still stronger
reason Sicily, will never suspect it.
Consequently my princess shall be called the Princess of Palmarosa. I
defy you to find sweeter sounds or a more flowery meaning in any name in
any novel. And now for her Christian name, we must think of that. We
will call her Agatha, because St. Agatha is the revered patron saint of
Catania. But I will urge the reader to pronounce the name _Agata_, even
if I should happen inadvertently to write it in French, otherwise he
will miss the local coloring.
My hero's name shall be Michelangelo Lavoratori, but we must never
confound him with the illustrious Michelangelo Buonarotti, who died at
least two hundred years before my man's birth.
As for the period in which the events are supposed to take
place--another unpleasant incident of the beginning of a novel--you are
entirely at liberty to select it yourself, dear reader. But inasmuch as
our characters will be actuated by ideas now in circulation in the
world, and as it would be impossible for me to speak to you as I should
like to do of the men of past ages, I fancy that the story of the
Princess Agatha of Palmarosa and Michelangelo Lavoratori belongs
somewhere between 1810 and 1840. Fix the precise year, day, and hour at
which we begin our narrative to suit yourself; it is a matter of
indifference to me, for my novel is neither historical nor descriptive,
nor does it pride itself at all upon being exact in either respect.
On the day in question--it was in autumn and broad daylight, if you
please--Michelangelo Lavoratori was descending diagonally across the
gorges and ravines which alternate with each other from the slopes of
Ætna to the fertile plain of Catania. He was coming from Rome; he had
crossed the Strait of Messina, he had followed the highroad as far as
Taormina. There, intoxicated by the grandeur of the spectacle which his
eyes beheld in all directions, and uncertain whether to choose the
seashore or the mountains, he had gone forward to some extent at random,
torn between his impatience to embrace his father and sister, whom he
had not seen for a year, and the temptation to go a little nearer the
gigantic volcano, compared to which it seemed to him, as to Spallanzani,
that Vesuvius is simply a parlor volcano.
As he was alone and on foot, he had lost his way more than once in that
wild region, intersected by vast streams of lava which form on all sides
steep mountains and valleys filled with luxuriant vegetation. One
travels far and makes very little progress when he must constantly
ascend and descend over a distance quadrupled in length by natural
obstacles. Michel had taken two days to travel the ten leagues, more or
less, which lie between Taormina and Catania as the crow flies; but at
last he was drawing near his journey's end, indeed, he had arrived; for,
after crossing the Cantaro and passing through Mascarello, Piano-Grande,
Valverde, and Mascalucia, he had at last left Santa-Agata on his right
and Ficarazzi on his left. Therefore he was only about a mile from the
suburbs of the city; if he had walked a quarter of an hour more, he
would have reached the end of the adventures of a pedestrian journey,
during which, despite the fascination and the enthusiastic admiration
which such natural scenery inspires in a young artist, he had suffered
considerably from heat in the ravines, from cold on the mountain-tops,
from hunger, and from fatigue.
But, as he skirted the wall of a vast park, on the slope of the last
hill which he still had to cross, and as, with his eyes fixed on the
city and the harbor, he quickened his pace to make up for lost time, he
stumbled over the stump of an olive-tree. The pain caused by the blow
was most acute; for, after two days' travelling over sharp slag, and
pozzuolana as hot as red-hot ashes, his shoes were sadly worn and his
feet cruelly bruised and sore.
Being compelled to stop, he found himself in front of a niche in the
wall, containing a madonna. This little chapel, sheltered by a stone
projection and provided with a bench, offered a hospitable resting-place
to wayfarers, and to beggars, monks, and others a convenient station at
the very door of the _villa_, of which our traveller could descry the
handsome buildings through the orange-trees planted in a triple row
along an avenue of considerable length.
Michel, more annoyed than cast down by this sudden hurt, dropped his
travelling satchel, seated himself on the bench, and rubbed his injured
foot, but soon forgot it to lose himself in meditation.
In order that the reader may understand the reflections which his
surroundings suggested to the young man, it is essential that I should
introduce him somewhat more fully. Michel was eighteen years of age and
was a student of painting at Rome. His father, Pier-Angelo Lavoratori,
was a mere dauber, a decorator, but very skilful in his line. And, as is
well known, in Italy the artisans whose business it is to cover walls
and ceilings with frescoes are almost all genuine artists. Whether from
tradition, or from natural good taste, they produce some very attractive
decorations; and in the most modest abodes, even in wretched taverns,
the eye is charmed by wreaths and rosework done in a fascinating style,
or it may be by borders simply, the coloring of which is happily
contrasted with the dull tints of the panels and wainscoting. These
frescoes are sometimes executed as perfectly as our wall-papers, and
they are much superior to them, in this respect, that one detects in
them the greater ease of manner of work done by hand. Nothing can be
more dismal than the stiff and regular decorations produced by
machinery. The beauty of Chinese vases, and, indeed, of Chinese work in
general, is attributable to that capricious air of spontaneity which the
human hand alone can impart to its work. Grace, freedom, boldness, the
unexpected, and even ingenuous awkwardness are, in decoration, elements
of charm which we are losing day by day, as we depend more and more upon
the resources of machinery and looms.
Pier-Angelo was one of the most rapid and ingenious of these
decorators--_adornatori_. He was a native of Catania, and had reared his
family there until the period of Michel's birth, when he abruptly left
his province and settled in Rome. The reason he assigned for this
voluntary exile was that his family was increasing in size, that there
was too much competition in Catania, and that consequently his work no
longer sufficed for his needs; wherefore he proposed to seek his fortune
elsewhere. But people said under their breath that he had fled from the
resentment of certain all-powerful patricians who were devoted to the
court of Naples.
Everyone knows the bitter hatred of that conquered and down-trodden
people for the government on the other side of the strait. The Sicilian,
proud and revengeful, rumbles incessantly like his volcano, and
sometimes erupts. It was whispered that Pier-Angelo had been involved in
an attempt at a popular uprising, and that he had been obliged to fly,
carrying with him his brushes and his household goods. To be sure, his
social and kindly temperament seemed to contradict such a supposition;
but the lively imaginations of the good people of the suburb of Catania
must needs devise an extraordinary motive for the disappearance of one
so loved and regretted by all his confrères.
At Rome he was hardly more fortunate, for he had the sorrow of losing
all his children there except Michel; and ere long his wife died in
giving birth to a daughter, whose young brother was her godfather, and
who received the name of Mila, a contraction of Michelangela.
Having lost these two children, Pier-Angelo, albeit more melancholy, was
much more at ease financially, and by dint of earnest work, he succeeded
in giving his son an education far superior to that which he had himself
received. He displayed a predilection for that boy which almost amounted
to weakness, and Michel, although poor and obscure, was a veritable
spoiled child.
Now, Pier-Angelo had spurred on his other sons to work, and had imparted
to them early in life the ardor which was consuming him. But, whether
because they had succumbed to excessive toil for which they had not
received from Heaven the same aptitude and strength as their father, or
because Pier-Angelo, finding his family reduced to three persons, no
longer deemed it necessary to have assistance, it is certain that he
seemed more anxious to handle tenderly the health of his last remaining
son, than to provide him betimes with a means of livelihood.
Nevertheless, the child loved painting, and in play produced fruit,
flowers, and birds, in which the coloring was exquisite. One day he
asked his father why he never introduced figures in his frescoes.
"What do you say? figures?" replied the good man, who had an abundance
of common sense: "one must paint very beautiful ones, or else let them
alone. Figure painting is beyond such talent as I have been able to
acquire, and whereas people think well of my garlands and arabesques, I
should be very sure of making connoisseurs laugh if I should attempt to
represent limping cupids or hump-backed nymphs dancing on my ceilings."
"Suppose I should try!" said the child, whom nothing daunted.
"Try on paper, and however successful you may be for your years, you
will soon see that you must learn before you know."
Michel tried. Pier-Angelo showed his son's sketches to some
connoisseurs, and to some painters too, who saw that the child had much
talent, and that it would be well for him not to be confined too closely
to the drudgery of mixing colors. Thereupon, Pier-Angelo determined to
make a painter of him, sent him to one of the best studios in Rome, and
relieved him entirely from preparing colors and daubing walls.
"One of two things will happen," he said to himself with good reason;
"either the child will become a master, or, if he has only trifling
talent, he will come back to the trade of decorating with knowledge that
I do not possess, and he will be a workman of the first order in his
line. In either case he will have a freer and more comfortable life than
mine."
Not that Pier-Angelo was dissatisfied with his lot. He was blest with
that improvidence, that recklessness, one might say, which are
characteristic of the most laborious and most robust men. He always
relied upon destiny, perhaps because he relied most of all upon his
strong arms and his courage. But as he was a very shrewd and intelligent
observer, he had already detected in Michel the gleam of a spark of
ambition which his other children had never had. He drew the conclusion
that the measure of happiness with which he had been content would not
suffice for that more delicately balanced organism. Tolerant to excess,
and thoroughly convinced that every man has aptitudes which no other man
can estimate accurately, he respected Michel's impulses and inclinations
as manifestations of the will of Heaven, and therein was no less
imprudent than generous.
For that blind complaisance was certain to lead, and did in fact lead to
this result--that Michelangelo became accustomed never to suffer, never
to be thwarted, and to look upon his own personality as more important
and more interesting than that of other people. He often mistook his
caprices for desires, and his desires for rights. Moreover, he was
attacked early in life by the disease peculiar to fortunate mortals,
that is to say, the fear that they may not always be so fortunate; and
in the midst of his progress he was often paralyzed by the fear of
failing. A vague disquietude seized upon him, and as he was naturally
energetic and bold, it sometimes made him sullen and irritable.
But we shall obtain a better conception of his character by following
him in the reflections he made at the gates of Catania, in the little
chapel in which he had taken his seat.
II
THE TRAVELLER'S STORY
I have forgotten to tell you, and it is important that you should know,
why Michel had been separated from his father and sister for a year
past.
Although he earned his living readily at Rome, and despite his happy
temperament, Pier-Angelo had never been able to accustom himself to
living abroad, far from his cherished fatherland. Like the genuine
islander he was, he regarded Sicily as a land favored by Heaven in every
respect, and the mainland as a place of exile. When the Catanians speak
of the terrible volcano which overwhelms and ruins them so often, they
carry love of country so far as to say: _Our Ætna_!--"Ah!" said
Pier-Angelo, on the day that he passed near the lava fields of Vesuvius,
"if you had seen our famous Catanian wave! that was grand and wonderful!
You would never dare to mention yours again!" He referred to the
terrible eruption of 1669, which sent a river of fire to the very centre
of the city, and destroyed half of the population and buildings. The
destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum seemed to him a jest.--"Psha!" he
would say proudly, "I have seen bigger earthquakes! You should come to
our home if you want to know what an earthquake is!"
In fact, he sighed incessantly for the moment when he could see again
his dear furnace and its beloved gate of hell.
When Michel and Mila, who were accustomed to his cheerful humor, saw
that he was pensive and downcast, they were grieved and disturbed, as
always happens with respect to persons with whom mental depression is a
rare phenomenon. Thereupon he confessed to his children that he was
thinking of his native land. "If I were not in excellent health," he
said, "and if I did not constantly argue with myself, homesickness would
have killed me long ago."
But when his children spoke to him of returning to Sicily, he would wave
his hands in a significant way, as if to say: "I cannot cross the strait
again; I should escape Charybdis only to fall into Scylla."
Once or twice he inadvertently said to them: "Prince Dionigi died a long
while ago, but his brother Hieronymo is still living." And when his
children questioned him as to what reason he had to fear Prince
Hieronymo, he shook his finger and said: "Hush! I should not even have
mentioned those princes before you."
But it happened one day that Pier-Angelo, being at work in a certain
palace in Rome, picked up a newspaper which he found on the floor, and
showing it to Michel, who had looked in upon him on his way from the
Museum of Painting, he exclaimed: "What a misfortune it is for me not to
know how to read! I will bet that there is news from my dear Sicily in
this paper. Look, look, Michel, what is this word here? I would swear
that it was Catania. Yes, yes, I can read that name! Come, look and tell
me what is going on at Catania in these days." Michel glanced at the
paper, and saw that it was proposed to light the principal streets of
Catania with hydrogen gas.
"Great Heaven!" ejaculated Pier-Angelo; "think of seeing Ætna by
gaslight! How beautiful that will be!"
And he threw his cap up to the ceiling in his joy.
"There is more news," said the young man, looking over the paper. "The
Prince-Cardinal Hieronymo of Palmarosa has been obliged to suspend the
exercise of the important functions which the Neapolitan government has
entrusted to him. His eminence has been stricken by paralysis, and his
life is deemed to be in danger. Pending a definite decision from the
medical profession concerning the mental and physical condition of that
noble personage, the government has entrusted his functions temporarily
to his excellency, the Marquis of----"
"What do I care to whom?" cried Pier-Angelo, snatching the paper from
his son's hands with extraordinary excitement, "Prince Hieronymo is off
to join his brother Dionigi in the tomb, and we are saved!"--Then, after
trying to spell out Prince Hieronymo's name for himself, as if he feared
that his son might have made a mistake, he returned the journal to him
and bade him read the paragraph again, very carefully and very slowly.
When this was done, Pier-Angelo crossed himself devoutly.
"O Providence!" he cried, "Thou hast permitted old Pier-Angelo to
witness the extinction of his persecutors, and to return to his native
city! Embrace me, Michel! this event is of no less importance to you
than to me. Whatever happens, remember that Pier-Angelo Lavoratori has
been a good father to you!"
"What do you mean, father? Are you still in any danger? If you must
return to Sicily, I will go with you."
"We will talk of that later, Michel. Meanwhile, silence!--Forget
everything, even the words that have escaped me."
Two days later, Pier-Angelo folded his tents and started for Catania
with his daughter. He would not consent to take Michel, despite the
latter's earnest entreaties.
"No," he said, "I am not certain that I shall be able to settle at
Catania, for I had the papers read to me again this morning, and they
don't say that Cardinal Hieronymo is dead. They don't mention him at
all. A personage so favored by the government, and so rich, could not
recover or die without a great sensation. So I conclude that he is still
alive, but that he is a little better. His temporary substitute is a
most excellent nobleman, a true patriot, and a friend of the people. I
have nothing to fear from the police so long as we have him to deal
with. But if by a miracle this Prince Hieronymo should come back to life
and health, I should have to return to Rome at once; and in that case
what good would it have done to make you take this journey, which would
interrupt your studies?"
"But," said Michel, "why not wait until this prince's fate is decided,
before you start yourself? I have no idea what you have to fear from him
and from your presence in Catania, father; for you have never chosen to
explain yourself clearly in that respect; but it alarms me to have you
start, all alone but for this child, for a land where you are not
certain of being well received. I know that the police officials of
absolute governments are suspicious and troublesome; and if you had
nothing worse to fear than a temporary imprisonment, even then what
would become of our little Mila, all alone in a city where you no longer
have any acquaintances? Let me go with you, in heaven's name! I will be
Mila's protector and defender, and when I see that you are comfortably
settled and in no danger, then I will return to Rome and resume my
studies, if you care to remain in Sicily."
"Yes, Michel, I know, I understand," replied Pier-Angelo. "You have no
wish to remain in Sicily, and your youthful ambition would be
ill-content with a long stay in an island which you believe to be
destitute of all resources and monuments of art. You are mistaken; we
have such noble monuments! Palermo fairly swarms with them. Ætna is the
grandest spectacle that nature can offer to a painter, and we have
painters, too. Morales filled our fatherland with masterpieces worthy to
be compared with those of Rome and Florence!"
"Excuse me, father," said Michel, smiling, "Morales is not to be
compared with Raphael, Michelangelo, or any of the masters of the
Florentine school."
"What do you know about it? That is just like children. You have never
seen his great works, his best pieces; you will see them in Sicily. And
such a climate! such skies! such fruit! A veritable land of promise!"
"Very well, father, permit me to go there with you," said Michel. "That
is precisely what I ask."
"No, no!" cried Pier-Angelo, earnestly. "I forgot myself in sounding the
praises of Catania, and I do not want you to go there with me now. I
know that your loving heart and your anxiety for us urge you to it; but
I know also that your real inclination does not lie that way. I want the
desire to come to you naturally, when the hour of your destiny has
struck, and when you will kiss the soil of your fatherland with love,
instead of treading it, as you would do to-day, with disdain."
"These reasons are of little weight, father, in view of the anxiety I
shall feel during your absence. I prefer to be bored and waste my time
in Sicily, rather than to let you go there without me and pass my time
here dreaming of dangers and disasters."
"Thanks my child, and farewell!" said the old man, embracing him
affectionately. "If I must tell you explicitly, I cannot take you. Here
is half of all the money I possess; be careful of it until I am able to
send you more. You can depend upon it that I shall not waste my time at
Catania, and that I will work energetically to procure the means for you
to continue your painting. I shall need time for the journey and to get
settled; after which I shall find plenty of work, for I had many friends
and patrons in my country, and I know that I shall find some of them
there still. Do not dream of dangers and disasters. I will be prudent;
and although duplicity and fear are not my ordinary failings, I have too
much Sicilian blood in my veins not to be able to display the cunning of
an old fox, at need. I know Ætna as well as I know my own pocket, and
its ravines are deep enough to keep a poor fellow like me hidden for a
long while. Besides, I have maintained friendly relations with my
kinsfolk, as you know. I have a brother a Capuchin, who is a _great
man_. Mila will find shelter and protection with them, if need be. I
will write to you--that is to say your sister will write for me--as
often as possible, and you shall not be left long in uncertainty as to
our fate. Do not mention the names of the Princes of Palmarosa, unless
we mention them to you first."
"And meanwhile," said Michel, "shall I not know what I have to fear or
to hope from these princes?"
"You? nothing, upon my word," replied Pier-Angelo; "but you do not know
Sicily; you would not have the prudence that is absolutely necessary in
countries that are subjected to foreigners. You have the ideas of a
young man, all the ardent ideas which circulate here in Rome, under the
cloak of lax administration, but which, in Sicily, are hidden and held
in reserve under the ashes of the volcanoes. You would compromise me,
and they would manufacture a conspiracy against the court of Naples out
of a single phrase thoughtlessly uttered by you in your fervent
liberalism. Farewell once more; do not detain me. I must see my country
once more! You have no idea what it means to me to have been born at
Catania, and to have been away eighteen years; or, rather, you do not
understand it, for it is true that you were born at Catania yourself,
and that the story of my exile is the story of yours! But you were
brought up at Rome, and you look upon Rome as your country, alas!"
A month later Michel received, by the hand of a mechanic who arrived in
Rome from Sicily, a letter from Mila, which informed him that their
journey was most successful; that they had been welcomed with open arms
by their relations and former friends; that Pier-Angelo had found work
and valuable patronage; but that the cardinal was still living, although
not greatly to be feared, because he had withdrawn from the world and
from public affairs. However, Pier-Angelo did not wish Michel to join
him, for no one knew _what might happen_.
Until then Michel had been depressed and anxious, for he loved his
father and sister dearly; but, as soon as his mind was at rest with
respect to them, he involuntarily rejoiced that he was at Rome and not
at Catania. His life there had been very pleasant since his father had
permitted him to devote himself to painting. Favored by his masters, who
were attracted to him not only because of his happy aptitude, but also
because of a certain elevation of mind and of language above his years
and his condition, received in the society of young men much richer and
more aristocratic than he--and we must admit that he was much more
accessible to their advances than to those of the sons of artisans, his
equals--he devoted his leisure to the cultivation of his brain and the
enlargement of his circle of ideas. He read rapidly and greedily, he
frequented the theatres, he conversed with artists; in a word, he
prepared himself wonderfully well for a free and noble existence, to
which, however, he was by no means certain that he could properly
aspire.
For the resources of the poor painter in distemper, who sent half of his
wages to him, were not inexhaustible. Illness might put an end to them
at any time, and painting is so serious and profound an art that one
must study many years before one can hope to make profitable use of it.
This thought terrified Michel, and sometimes cast him into the deepest
dejection. "O father!" he was saying to himself, when we met him at the
gate of a palace near his native town: "Did you not, through excessive
affection for me, do yourself as well as me a great injury, by urging me
on in the pathway of ambition? I do not know if I shall succeed, yet I
feel that it will be very hard for me to resume the life which you lead,
and for which fortune destined me. I am not so strong as you; I am a
degenerate in the matter of physical strength, which is the stamp of
nobility of our race. I cannot walk, I am fatigued beyond measure by
what would be simply healthy exercise for you, at sixty years of age.
And here am I used up, wounded in the foot, by my own fault, by reason
of my absent-mindedness or my awkwardness. And yet I was born among
these mountains, and I see children running over these sharp lava beds
as I would walk on a carpet. Yes, my father was right, this is a
beautiful fatherland; one may well be proud of having issued like the
lava, from the sides of yonder terrible mountain! But one should be
wholly, not half worthy of such a glorious origin. He should be a great
man and fill the world with peals of thunder and lightning flashes; or
else he should be a stout-hearted peasant or a determined brigand, and
live in the desert, without other resource than a carbine and a pitiless
heart. That too is a poetic destiny. But it is too late for me; I have
learned too many things, I know the laws, society and mankind too well.
That which is heroism in these artless and uncivilized mountaineers
would be cowardice and crime in me. My conscience would reproach me for
having succeeded in attaining grandeur by genius and the gifts of
civilization, and for having relapsed, from impotence, to a condition of
brigandage. So I should have to live an obscure, insignificant life!"
Let us leave Michel for a little while to nurse and rub his aching foot,
and inform the reader why, despite his love for Rome and the pleasant
days he passed there, he found himself now at the gates of Catania.
From month to month his sister had written to him, at her father's
dictation: "You cannot come yet, and we cannot make any decision
concerning our own future. The sick man is as well as a man can be who
has lost the use of his arms and his legs. But his head still lives and
retains a remnant of power. Here is some money; be careful of it, my
child; for, although I have all the work I want, wages are lower here
than at Rome."
Michel tried to be careful of the money, which represented to him the
sweat of his father's brow. He quivered with shame and dismay when his
young sister, who worked at spinning silk--a very common industry in
that part of Sicily,--secretly added a gold piece to her father's
remittance. Evidently the poor child subjected herself to great
privations to obtain for her brother the wherewithal to amuse himself
for an hour. Michel vowed that he would not touch those gold pieces, but
would save them and carry back to Mila all her little savings.
But Michel loved pleasure; he craved a certain amount of luxury, and he
did not know how to save. He had princely tastes, that is to say, he
loved to give, and rewarded handsomely any _facchino_ who brought him a
picture or a letter. And then too, painting materials are very
expensive. Again, when Michel was in the company of wealthy young men,
he would have blushed not to pay his scot like the rest. So that he ran
in debt to a small amount, albeit very large for the budget of a poor
decorator. There came a time when, the debt imitating the snow-ball, it
became necessary for him either to fly in disgrace or to resign himself
to take up some more humble occupation than historical painting.
Trembling with rage and grief, Michel sacrificed the gold pieces which
he had determined to carry back to Mila some day. But, finding that he
was still far from solvent, he confessed everything in a letter to his
father, blaming himself with something very like despair. A week later a
banker forwarded to the young man the sum necessary to pay his debt, and
to live some time longer on the same footing. Then came a letter from
Mila, who said, still at Pier-Angelo's dictation: "A kind friend lent me
the money I have sent to you; but I shall have to work six months to
repay the loan. Try, my son, not to run in debt again until then, for if
you do we shall have arrears of indebtedness which we can never
discharge."
Although Michel had never been reprimanded by his father, he expected
something in the nature of a rebuke this time. When he realized the
excellent man's inexhaustible kindness and philosophic courage, he was
heartbroken, and though unable to blame himself for errors into which
his position had irresistibly led him, he did blame himself, as for a
crime, for having accepted that too brilliant position. He formed a
mighty resolution, and was assisted in carrying it out by the idea that
he was consummating a great sacrifice, and that if he had not the making
of a great painter in him, he had at all events the heroism of a great
character. Thus vanity had much to say in this effort of his will, but
it was an ingenuous and noble vanity. He paid his debts and bade his
friends farewell, announcing his purpose to abandon painting and to work
with his father at his trade.
Then, without informing his father of his coming, he packed in a bag a
few choice clothes, a sketch-book, and a number of boxes of
water-colors, not realizing that those symbols of luxury and art showed
that he carried the thought of luxury and art with him; and he started
for Catania, where we have seen him on the point of arriving.
III
MONSIGNORE
Despite this heroic renunciation of all the dreams of his youth, poor
Michel experienced at that moment a sort of grief-stricken dismay. The
journey had diverted his thoughts from the consequences of his
sacrifice. The sight of Ætna had exalted his imagination. The joy he
felt at the thought of seeing his excellent father and his dear little
sister had sustained his courage. But this unlucky accident of a
trifling wound in the foot, and the necessity of halting for an instant,
gave him leisure for reflection for the first time since he had left
Rome.
Moreover, that was an exceedingly solemn moment to his youthful mind. He
saw before him the domes of his native city, one of the loveliest cities
in the world, even to him who comes from Rome, and the one of all others
whose location is most imposing to the eye.
This city, so many times devastated by the volcano, is not very ancient,
and the style of the seventeenth century, which prevails in its
buildings, has not the grandeur or the pure taste of earlier periods.
Nevertheless, Catania, built upon an extensive plan and of antique
spaciousness, is of a Greek type, taken as a whole. The sombre color of
the lava from which it has risen again and again after being swallowed
up by it, as if it had found the seeds of renewed life in its own ashes,
after the manner of the phœnix, the open plain which surrounds it, and
the cruel reefs of lava which have taken root in its harbor, as if to
darken with their stern shadow even the shimmer of the waves--everything
about the city is majestic and melancholy.
But it was not the aspect of the place that engrossed the thoughts of
our young traveller. His own plight made it seem to him more gloomy and
terror-inspiring than it had been made by the passage of the flames that
belched forth from the cave of the Cyclops. He saw before him a place of
trials and of expiation, in face of which a cold perspiration burst from
every pore. It was there that he was about to bid farewell to the world
of art, to the society of enlightened men, to unchecked reveries, and to
the studious leisure of the artist summoned to an exalted destiny. It
was there that he must resume, after ten years of a highly-favored
existence, the artisan's apron, the hateful sizing-pot, the conventional
festoon, the decoration of reception rooms and corridors. And, worse
than all the rest, it was there that he would have to work twelve hours
a day and go to bed exhausted, lacking time and strength to read or muse
in a picture gallery; there that he must resign himself to do without
other society than that of the Sicilian common people, so poor and so
unclean that the poetic charm of his features and his intellect could
scarcely penetrate the rags and degradation of poverty. In a word, the
gate of Catania was, to that poor exile, the gate of the accursed city
described by Dante.
At the thought, a torrent of tears, long held in check or turned aside,
rushed from his eyes, and whoever had seen him thus, young, comely,
pale, seated outside the gate of a palace, with his hand lying
carelessly upon his injured foot, would inevitably have thought of the
gladiator of old, wounded in combat, but weeping for his defeat rather
than for the pain.
[Illustration: _THE CARDINAL'S ESCORT._
_The bells of a number of mules ascending the
hill, and the appearance of a strange caravan coming
directly toward him, forcibly changed the current of
Michelangelo Lavoratori's reflections._]
The bells of a number of mules ascending the hill, and the appearance of
a strange caravan coming directly toward him, forcibly changed the
current of Michelangelo Lavoratori's reflections. The mules were superb
creatures, richly caparisoned and decorated with plumes. On their long
purple saddle-cloths gleamed the insignia of the cardinalate, the triple
cross of gold, surmounted by the little hat and tassels. They were laden
with baggage and led by servants dressed in black, with gloomy,
suspicious faces; then came abbés and other ecclesiastics, with black
short-clothes, red stockings and large silver buckles on their shoes;
some on horseback, others in litters. A very stout individual, in a
black coat, with his hair in a bag, a diamond on his finger, and a sword
at his side, rode gravely upon a magnificent ass. From his air of
importance, somewhat more candid than the crafty expressions of the
churchmen who surrounded him, he could readily be identified as his
eminence's physician. He escorted his eminence himself, who was carried
in a chair, or rather in a great box, by two powerful men, beside whom
walked four relay bearers. The whole procession consisted of about forty
persons, and the uselessness of each one of them could be measured by
the rapt meditation and humility depicted on his face.
Michel, deeply interested in the passage of this procession which
surpassed all that Rome had to offer in that direction, that was most
classic and superannuated, rose and stood near the gateway, in order to
obtain a nearer view of the principal personage's face. He was the
better able to gratify his curiosity, as the bearers halted in front of
the enormous gilded gate, while a sort of abbé, with a repulsive
countenance, dismounted and opened the gate himself with an air of
authority and a peculiar smile.
The cardinal was a man far advanced in years, who had once been
corpulent and florid, but was now pale and emaciated, as the result of
gradual and cruel decay. The skin upon his face, once tightly stretched,
now relaxed, hung in innumerable folds, and imparted to the face a
strong resemblance to a field furrowed by the passage of a torrent.
Despite these ghastly evidences of decomposition, there was a trace of
imperious beauty upon those lifeless features, which could not or would
not make the faintest movement, but amid which two great black eyes
still glowed, the last sanctuary of a stubborn vitality.
The contrast between the stern, piercing glance and the corpse-like face
impressed Michel so strongly that he could not avoid a feeling of
respect, and he instinctively bared his head before that feeble remnant
of a powerful will. Everything that indicated a forceful, imperious
nature produced its effect upon that young man's imagination, because he
was himself ambitious of power and authority, and, except for the gleam
of those tyrannical eyes, it is doubtful if it would have occurred to
him to remove his straw hat.
But, as his modest garb and his dusty shoes indicated a man of the
people rather than a great painter in embryo, the cardinal's people and
the cardinal himself naturally expected to see him kneel, which he did
not do, and his neglect scandalized them terribly.
The cardinal was the first to notice it, and as his bearers were about
to pass through the gate, he made a sign with his eyebrows which was
instantly read by his physician, who rode always beside him, and was
ordered to keep his eyes always fixed upon those of his eminence.
The doctor had just enough wit to understand from the cardinal's
expression that he wished to manifest some desire or other; so he
ordered a halt, and advised Abbé Ninfo, his eminence's secretary, the
same who had opened the gate with his own hand, and with a key taken
from his own pocket. The abbé hastened forward, as he had done before,
and placed his body in front of the door of the chair in such way as to
conceal it from the rest of the procession. Thereupon there took place
between his eminence and him a mysterious dialogue, so mysterious that
no one could say whether his eminence made himself understood by speech,
or simply by the play of his features. Ordinarily the paralytic
dignitary uttered nothing more than unintelligible grunts, which became
a frightful roar when he was angry; but Abbé Ninfo understood those
grunts so well, when assisted by his eminence's expressive glance and
his intimate knowledge of his character and designs, that he interpreted
his master's wishes and ordered them executed with an intelligence, a
rapidity and a careful attention to details which bordered on the
marvellous. Indeed it seemed altogether too supernatural to be accepted
as genuine by the other subordinate priests, and they declared that his
eminence had retained the power of speech, but that by virtue of the
most profound diplomacy, he preferred not to use that power except with
Abbé Ninfo. Doctor Recuperati asserted however that his eminence's
tongue was paralyzed as completely as his arms and legs, and that the
only living portions of his being were the organs of the brain and of
the digestion. "With those," he said, "a man may live to be a hundred
years old, aye, and shake the world, as Jupiter shook Olympus, simply by
contracting his eyebrow."
The result of the strange dialogue between Abbé Ninfo's sharp eyes and
the eloquent eyebrows of his eminence, was that the abbé turned
suddenly to Michel and motioned to him to draw near. Michel was strongly
tempted to do nothing of the sort, and to compel the abbé to walk to
him; but the Sicilian spirit suddenly awoke in him, and he stood on his
guard. He recalled all that his father had told him of the dangers to be
dreaded from the wrath of a certain cardinal, and, although he could not
tell whether the man before him was paralyzed or not, it suddenly
occurred to him that he might very well be Cardinal Hieronymo, of
Palmarosa. Thereupon he determined to dissemble, and he approached the
gilded, decorated chair adorned with his eminence's crest.